tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post6051038492376134681..comments2018-05-24T12:11:28.025-05:00Comments on Pretentious Title: Let's Talk Numbers: Reader Retention Rates Across a SeriesRachel Aaronhttps://plus.google.com/108161207392501159365noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-3935768526041497022015-07-11T13:18:46.328-05:002015-07-11T13:18:46.328-05:00Let&#39;s see .. I bought the first Monpress trilo...Let&#39;s see .. I bought the first Monpress trilogy an a ebook from Amazon UK in 2012, paying pounds 5.99, and enjoyed it greatly. After that you were on my radar but I hadn&#39;t heard there was anything more from you until I saw an omnibus of 4 and 5 on an Orbit giveaway table at a convention.<br /><br />I next heard of you when the Fortune&#39;s Pawn trilogy started getting a lot of mentions in feminist social media, and realised you were the same person despite the different name. That was enough to convince me to buy them (again, as ebooks).<br /><br />At this point you&#39;re on my automatic buy list, and I&#39;ve already pre-ordered Heartstriker 2.MadScientisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05335675726446029787noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-78376421470644980982015-06-24T10:32:08.636-05:002015-06-24T10:32:08.636-05:00I&#39;m strictly a reader not a writer, and I&#39;...I&#39;m strictly a reader not a writer, and I&#39;ll speak first to my bit in your numbers ;) I bought the Eli trio book because it kept popping up in &#39;you might like&#39; and posts from friends. But I have yet to read much of it, it didn&#39;t grab me at the time I looked at it (I read prolifically, and I get into genre-moods) and I&#39;ve not gone back to it. So I&#39;m part of the drop off there but there&#39;s always the chance that I&#39;ll pick it up and get into it a year from now too (one advantage of ebooks, the entire series is always available! With physical books if a series is several books in when I discover it I&#39;ll probably never read it due to the lack of availability of the earlier books.)<br /><br />One Good Dragon is another that kept popping up on my radar and in January I purchased it (at full price!) and then didn&#39;t read it for another 4 or 5 months. Once I did though I read straight through, and found your blogs for info on the next, which I&#39;ve since preordered. So, the fact that it had been on various sales probably contributed to my noticing it, but I didn&#39;t hold out for a sale to buy. Having preordered the 2nd, if I read and enjoy it as much as the first, I&#39;ll continue preordering the series (assuming it becomes one) until I get disappointed.<br /><br />In general, as someone who reads quickly, I love series and long books. I really enjoy the opportunity to get to a know a world and its people in depth. If you can get me to read the first couple I&#39;ll likely keep reading. But there are series that I&#39;ve dropped -- either because I got older/ceased to be the target audience (though note that I still read some YA books at the age of 50), lost interest in the genre, or (and this is the death point) lost interest in the series. That&#39;s most likely to happen with a complete shift in time and character focus, but that&#39;s not the only trigger.<br /><br />The trick with me is getting me past the first 50 pages ;) I&#39;m a lot more likely to stop reading a book when irritated by something than I used to be, because I have so many more choices now. Jordan&#39;s endless exposition killed any shot at my reading the series for instance - 50 pages in, still in the first locale, and I didn&#39;t like anyone is just death. with as many yet-to-be-read ebooks on my Kindle as I have, if I lose patience with a character or with the world building early on, I&#39;m more likely to stop reading than I was when I had to hit the local bookstore in forlorn hope of something else to read.Loredenahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12110801085496605266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-83135988240158312142015-06-17T09:31:25.298-05:002015-06-17T09:31:25.298-05:00@MrFester I&#39;m curious as well. Our audiobook d...@MrFester I&#39;m curious as well. Our audiobook data is effectively years behind that of our data on print and eBook. Almost nothing to work with for now.Travis Bachhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02462838657483444088noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-87847937787813209242015-06-15T15:07:20.579-05:002015-06-15T15:07:20.579-05:00I would love to know as well. Mainly cause I&#39;m...I would love to know as well. Mainly cause I&#39;m curious, but it would be useful to know for planning things other than straight up sff seriesTravis Bachhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02462838657483444088noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-15348977521358489612015-06-14T13:57:40.384-05:002015-06-14T13:57:40.384-05:00Interesting read, as a full Audible listener. I ...Interesting read, as a full Audible listener. I am also wondering about the Audio side of the books and the retention rates based on if the VA is any good or one VA is changed during a series. <br /><br />For example, I was listening to a authors book series that had 12 books in that series and at book 6 she or someone decided to change the VA and that VA was freaking terrible and everyone hated the VA and most stopped listening to the books, at least the rest of them in the series. Now that doesnt mean the rest of the books were bad, its just pure agony for a audio listener to listen to a bad VA. MrFesternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-17609273972442927152015-06-13T21:44:23.870-05:002015-06-13T21:44:23.870-05:00This is an awesome breakdown! Grateful, grateful, ...This is an awesome breakdown! Grateful, grateful, grateful!<br /><br />I read both fiction series and non-fiction and, if it helps any, here&#39;s how I decide:<br /><br />Fiction - If I read book one of a connected series (i.e. same characters, one long basic story arc), I will keep reading until the author stops writing them, unless they do something really, really weird to lose me. I actually can&#39;t think of a series like that that I bought book 2 and stopped there. I&#39;m a super fast reader, so I love series and I love long books. When a series is originally a trilogy, and then they keep going after that, sometimes the second set isn&#39;t as good and I may lose interest (although I&#39;ll always go back and reread the first. The only other exception is Robert Jordan&#39;s Wheel of Time series. I stopped at the beginning of Book 11, because he was introducing new characters and I just couldn&#39;t take it any more. Sigh. And the Honor Harrington books - eventually they connect to another separate set of characters in a way that sort of lost me, and I kind of petered out on them, but those are exceptions.<br /><br />Other series, like JD Robb&#39;s &quot;In Death&quot; books, I will also generally read each new one as they come out, but since the stories themselves are more stand-alone, I feel less urgency. There&#39;s probably a technical term for those but I don&#39;t know it.<br /><br />Non-Fiction - these days those are writing books, whether craft or marketing, or whatever. If I read one, such as yours Rachel, and you write another one, I will snap it up immediately, even if I&#39;m not currently working on that part of my writing. I just may sit on it until I&#39;m in that mode, then read it. But once I like a writer&#39;s style or topics, I tend very much to have &quot;brand loyalty,&quot; as they say, and unless the topic varies wildly from what I&#39;m interested in, I&#39;ll buy it. I read a lot of non-fiction history (I teach) and once I find an author I like, I&#39;ll stick to him or her like reader-glue.<br /><br />Yes, that&#39;s a plug for &quot;please, please more writing books!&quot; :-D<br /><br />One caveat: I&#39;m not a typical person, being one of those oddballs who reads over 100 books a year.<br /><br />But thanks for this -- this kind of breakdown is immensely helpful!!Nicole Montgomeryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05965868885700569766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-66061322791841521062015-06-13T18:35:47.466-05:002015-06-13T18:35:47.466-05:00Thanks for the response! I&#39;m surprised the au...Thanks for the response! I&#39;m surprised the audiobooks don&#39;t make more of an impact (just because I&#39;m biased, I guess, and think Rachel&#39;s books make for particularly kick-ass audiobooks), but numbers don&#39;t lie...Zsquarednoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-21400231906163133302015-06-13T14:44:38.257-05:002015-06-13T14:44:38.257-05:00I wonder if the &quot;reader retention rate&quot; ...I wonder if the &quot;reader retention rate&quot; (R3) is different for horror or romance genres? When I worked in a library, devoted readers followed the author, waiting for the author&#39;s next book, be it Steven King or Barbara Cartland. Mystery readers tended to follow the author if it had the same &quot;detective&quot; or lead character, and felt disappointment if the same lead character was not in the next book. Different profile for SF/F readers? DanielD.E. Mitchelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09358751300107437591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-75613737928632187942015-06-12T20:38:10.258-05:002015-06-12T20:38:10.258-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Travis Bachhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02462838657483444088noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-74376418278032304432015-06-12T20:37:35.133-05:002015-06-12T20:37:35.133-05:00Fair enough. I&#39;m not saying that the first boo...Fair enough. I&#39;m not saying that the first book isn&#39;t super important though. I&#39;m saying that the second book is much more important than I ever previously thought. Travis Bachhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02462838657483444088noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-24698602636558188932015-06-12T20:26:26.321-05:002015-06-12T20:26:26.321-05:00Thanks!
Looks like my earlier reply was lost. I ...Thanks! <br /><br />Looks like my earlier reply was lost. I just wanted to say that audio book sales aren&#39;t included here because we don&#39;t get unit counts in the royalty statements. <br /><br />The numbers in that regard are very small though, so I don&#39;t think much would change here if included.Travis Bachhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02462838657483444088noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-22023991151822406762015-06-12T19:57:37.213-05:002015-06-12T19:57:37.213-05:00As a reader, I don&#39;t think your reasoning on b...As a reader, I don&#39;t think your reasoning on book 2 selling the series is accurate. I read a lot of books and always start at the first in a series. If I like it, I&#39;m going to read the next book <b>and</b> every book after that, I&#39;ve already made up my mind after the first book. I can count on one hand the number of times I&#39;ve decided to read the second book without knowing if I wanted to read the rest of the series.<br /><br />On the other hand, when I read the first book and don&#39;t like it, I&#39;m just not going to read any sequels. No amount of advertising or action by the author is going to change that. I still show up as a sale for the first book, but I won&#39;t be getting the others. <br /><br />The only time I can see reading book 2 selling me on the rest of the series is if it diverges into a side character&#39;s series. If you have a first book that&#39;s good, then the protagonist goes on in sequels and I read those, I might not read a new series that starts after the first book and goes on with a different protagonist. Getting me to read that book might make a difference. Ronald Weasley and the Chamber of Secrets has to work much harder than Harry Potter does.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-25624810832973604592015-06-12T12:14:52.519-05:002015-06-12T12:14:52.519-05:00I love your numbers posts! Keep &#39;em coming!
O...I love your numbers posts! Keep &#39;em coming!<br /><br />One factor you didn&#39;t mention -- until recently, only the first three books in the Eli Monpress series were available as audiobooks. I know because that&#39;s why I waited to buy book 4! I hate switching between audiobook/print book formats. Have you tried breaking your sales down by format to see if that contributed to the drop-off after book 3?Zsquarednoreply@blogger.com